


Whoso Dwelleth Under the Defence of the Most High

by Vrunka



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Blasphemy, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Other, Spoilers for John Seed’s territory, grappling with faith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 09:43:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14162055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrunka/pseuds/Vrunka
Summary: Saying yes should be the easiest thing in the world. Just three letters. Y. E. S.





	Whoso Dwelleth Under the Defence of the Most High

**Author's Note:**

> Was Joseph in the Gulf War with Jerome? Apparently not but I honestly thought I had read it somewhere so whatever. Ubisoft can’t be bothered to give me belivable backstory I’ll make my own!
> 
> Title is from Matthew 4:6 The Temptation of Christ.

“See,” John says. Conversationally. Like he isn’t holding Jerome hostage. Like Jerome’s blood isn’t clotting across his knuckles. “Your savior, He died for your sins, you know. Jesus suffered and He died and He’s gone. And that was His mistake.”

Jerome’s eyes narrow. One lens is shattered, John shifts in and out of focus before him. Blurred edges. Soft lines where there should only be hard, brutal hate. Jerome’s gut aches. His face burns. Jesus suffered such indignities as well, before his death, but Jerome doesn’t place himself on such a pedestal. Wouldn’t ever dare to.

He may die here, martyred, but he will not be canonized. They will never make a saint of him. He wouldn’t want it that way.

“It’s just...hard to follow an absent father,” John says. “A neglectful one. And that is what Jospeh wants to bring to you. Don’t you see that? He’ll save you, he’ll love you. He will be there for you.”

John’s fingers touch Jerome’s face, his cheeks. Jerome winces away from the contact. The softness in it.

The pleading.

Say yes, say yes.

He will never say yes.

“Don’t be like that,” John says. So softly.

They are alone. John’s guards are waiting outside for the Deputy to come rolling in on her white horse. She has done so much for them already, the Good Samaritan. She will be too late. Jerome can already taste that.

A staleness in the air of the church he has dedicated his life to.

A sort of haunting sadness. Lingering. Men on their deathbeds in the Gulf, taking their Last Rights under his palms. Eyes locked on something that Jerome could not see.

He understands now.

The glassy-eyed reflection that comes before the inevitable.

Moments of his life suspended in slow motion in his brain.

Jospeh speaking to him in hushed tones in the tent one night. Philosophical questions, flippant turn of phrases. Speaking of his young wife and his sister—dark haired raven beauty and not the girl the hostage the lamb to the slaughter they’re now calling Faith—and his brothers.

His brothers.

John’s fingers on his face again, cupping his jaw. “Preacher,” he says, soft and gentle, “I’m gonna need you to stay with me here. Can you do that?”

The world is swimming. Jerome’s mouth tastes like blood. His lip is split.

“Fuck you,” he manages. From his gut. Dragged through him.

John smiles. It’s absolutely maniacal the way it tugs at his lips. Never quite reaching those boyish eyes, cruel child’s glee in their pretty blue depths.

“Not very Christian of you, Father. All that Catholic goodwill gone with the flock I guess, huh?”

“You’re welcome to leave if you think I’m not being an adequate host,” Jerome spits.

John laughs. True, jubilant mirth. He scratches at his cheek. His nose wrinkles. “Charming,” he says. “There’s still some fight left in you yet. I would have thought being abandoned by your people and God would leave you completely defanged. But then again...maybe you’re used to it. To your flock playing both sides. Witty deflections as a bandaid solution to a deeper problem.” John steps closer, in his space, head tilted to whisper into Jerome’s ear.

“There’s a titty bar barely ten feet from your doors, Father. Operating as normal all these years with you right here, not even condemning it.” John nods. His expression, what Jerome can see of it with how close he is standing, is gentle again. Terrible. So, so sincere. “The flesh is so weak. So tempted.”

Jerome feels his gut flex at the insinuation. The knee-jerk reaction to defend himself, his faith, his own righteous sincerity. John’s fingers in his hair stop him before he can. Stall any sort of resistance he could come up with.

John’s fingers.

Stroking his hair.

Slipping through the curls.

Intimate.

Inappropriate.

Unwanted.

The flesh is weak.

The flesh is weak.

But not that weak. Not any more. Jerome pulls away so quickly it’s a wonder he doesn’t dislocate something. His wrists strain against the ropes holding him bound. His glasses catch on John’s wrist, the button of his cuff; they fall from his face, clatter to the floor.

John tsks, tongue clicking over the harsh sound of it.

“Don’t touch me,” Jerome says. Between his teeth. A snarl. John is a blur as bends to pick the glasses up, a blur as he turns them between his palms.

Jerome feels more defenseless in this moment than in any other. More defenseless than when there were four of them, kicking him in the ribs, John’s fist striking across his face. More defenseless than when John lashed his wrists together, sat him in this pew to await the Deputy.

Without his glasses, John is a blur. He could almost be anyone. A white brunette man in blue. Forgivable.

“Father,” John says. “Father. Father. Do you think Jospeh didn’t tell me what I would be...dealing with here? Did you think he wouldn’t prepare me for our,” a pause, dramatic. No one is filming here but John postures like a lawyer regardless. “Our inevitable clash.”

John’s hand touching him again, fixing his glasses back over his ears. The lens that was shattered has come fully free. Jerome’s head aches at the contrast, one eye blind, one eye seeing in sharp detail. He closes the blind one, it helps some.

“And what did he tell you?” Jerome asks despite himself.

Gunfire in the dark and mumbled prayers. And muffled curses. Joseph’s sins laid out in a neat row, his teeth against his own lip. So afraid they were to die.

John smiles. He opens his mouth.

The door to the church bangs open. Jerome cannot help but wince at the thought of the hardwood slamming into the plaster—the bills that will follow. Except. Except.

Soon it will not be his problem.

“We got reports from Jacob,” a thick, accented voice says. Not one of Jerome’s congregation, he is exceedingly thankful for that. “Seems she’s crawling around the mountains making trouble for him.”

John’s eyes go wide. The smile turns feral. And then into a frown. The inferiority complex he wears on his sleeve bleeding through the expensive fabric of his vest and button down.

“She is fucking what?” he asks. Clipped. Every syllable a sentence in its own.

The man’s voice is shaking when he says. “She...she doesn’t...appear to be coming this way...currently. She’s...she’s not coming for him.”

“Leave,” John says.

The man begins to stutter something else, but John shakes his head. Extends a hand. Pointing.

“Leave,” he says again. “Right now. Go out there, take some men and find her. She will not—“ he bites whatever else he was going to say off. Those even white teeth gnashing down on the end of it.

She will not—

She is not.

She is not coming for him. Jerome’s gut turns the words over. His mind analyzes each in turn. She has gone north. She has gone north. Unpredictability is one of her strongest assets, her seemingly random scrawls through the county are what have made her so efficient at evading Eden’s Gate but...

The doors close. He hears the heavy echoing of their weight settling home.

She is not coming.

“She’s not coming,” John says. Staring into the middle distance himself now. Not even talking to Jerome. And then he is. Eyes like lasers, cutting through Jerome’s flesh and bone. Searing him.

“Did you hear that?” he says. “She isn’t coming for you. The last bastion of your hope and she’s not coming.”

“I heard,” Jerome says. He’s not sure where the peace comes from, settling across him thick and heavy. A lethargy. Giving in. “Saying yes would be so simple now,” he says.

John grins, he rubs a thumb over his knuckles. “Now that you’ve lost,” he says.

“I’m not saying yes.”

“Of course you aren’t. Joseph says you’re too stubborn for your own good. Says you take to your ideas like a bulldog. He told me something else too though. Told me about your sins. How many times did you watch my brother jerk off in that fucking war, Father? And how many times did you tell him he was going to Hell for it?”

Too many.

And never.

Across the tent, never touching but so so tempted. And so, so afraid. Of dying. Of being wrong. The closest he ever came to his faith being shaken was there, in that fucking war in that fucking tent with Joseph Seed across from him.

Jospeh talking about his pretty, pretty wife. Touching himself and aching for her.

Jerome...does not have the shields to say he was thinking about Joseph’s often mentioned wife. Here at the end he can at least face that. That it was Joseph’s flesh and Joseph’s voice that had him groping at his own cock and giving into temptation long after the other had left.

Jesus in the desert who was willing to die rather than take the Devil’s hand. Jerome was not that strong.

“But you’re only human,” John says, like he can read Jerome’s toxic, horrible thoughts. “Just a man who will die for his foolish fucking beliefs.” John’s voice is shaking.

His hands are shaking when they grab at Jerome’s throat. When they press into his flesh, squeezing and squeezing.

“I’ll leave you somewhere she can find you,” John says. “I’ll make sure I make it painful for her.”

Jerome blinks.

Like slow motion.

Every little thing heightened by his lack of oxygen. The feel of John’s nails. The creases in his palms. Blurry and in focus, blurry and seething, blurry and crying and darkness and darkness.

And darkness.

And in the darkness a voice.

Small and repeating. Flickering like a flame.

Yes

It says

Yes my son you’ve done so well

Yes

**Author's Note:**

> The Heralds are certainly patient as I run around Montana fishing and hunting with my dog and absolutely ignoring story missions...


End file.
